There are growing calls for an end to the government’s rotational school attendance for learners which was implemented due to Covid-19 protocols. The government’s one-metre social distance policy has led to most schools having to operate on a rotational basis whereby each learner only attends school 50% of the time, to create enough space in classrooms for social distancing.
Democratic Alliance Leader, John Steenhuisen, said the DA is compiling papers to bring an urgent interdict to direct schools to open fully. The current policy is irrational, unjustifiable, unfair and downright outrageous. There is no justification for continuing with rotational schooling. In the current South African context, this policy is devoid of any benefit in reducing infections. The purpose of the policy was to enable one-metre social distancing in classrooms, to thereby take pressure off the health system by slowing the spread of the virus. Yet, the health system has not been under pressure from the virus during the fourth wave, said Steenhuisen.
KZN Education Department spokesperson, Kwazi Mthethwa, said rotational time-tabling will continue until the department is given orders by the Health Department to have it scrapped. We are not doing as we want but merely following safety measures. Covid-19 is very much still with us and we need to continue to work together and follow the safety measures to avoid it. As the department, we continue to follow the safety measures given by the Health Department. The department has been providing personal protective equipment (PPE) to schools to ensure that learners and teachers are protected, said Mthethwa.
Sydenham resident, Richard Smith, who is a parent of a Grade 3 learner, said rotational school attendance is unnecessary as the Covid-19 infection rate has decreased. My son is at foundation phase level and he needs to be in school 100% of the time not 50%, in order to grasp what is being taught in class. The 50% learning is unproductive because young learners forget easily and most of the time cannot remember what was learnt in the previous week. Rotational schooling should be scrapped immediately, said Smith.
South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) media officer, Nomusa Cembi, said: We understand that learners have lost out on school time due to rotational learning but we cannot force matters at this point. Safety should come first. Schools do not have enough classrooms therefore social distancing cannot be observed in class if all learners attend together. Rotational learning will help prevent schools from becoming super spreaders of the virus. Steenhuisen said that the risk to school children that accrues from them missing school far outweighs the benefit to those in the high-risk group that accrues from having schoolchildren on a rotational schooling system.
There is evidence of school children losing 57-81% of their reading ability due to rotational schooling. Most schoolchildren lost over 50% of their schooling in 2020 and 2021. Hundreds of thousands have dropped out of school altogether as a result of the indirect effects of Covid regulations. In 2021 alone, some 370 000 to 700 000 learners dropped out of school, adding to the already burgeoning ranks of youth not in education, employment or skills training. Teachers have had plenty of time to get vaccinated if they so choose. Schoolchildren cannot be made sacrificial lambs to cover for government’s inadequate vaccination campaign or for adults failure to get vaccinated, said Steenhuisen.
